While the Light Lasts Read online

  She looked up half doubtfully, but there was a faint smile quivering at the corners of her mouth.

  ‘Has he?’

  ‘Of course!’

  It was the second time he had used this extremely positive form of assurance, and now, as before, it did not fail of its effect, for after a minute or two the girl said, in that slightly royal manner of hers:

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘That’s splendid,’ he replied gruffly, but there was something in his voice as he said it that made the girl glance at him swiftly, with a sharp impulse of pity.

  And so the queer friendship began. Twice a week they met, at the shrine of a little heathen idol. At first they confined their conversation solely to him. He was, as it were, at once a palliation of, and an excuse for, their friendship. The question of his origin was widely discussed. The man insisted on attributing to him the most bloodthirsty characteristics. He depicted him as the terror and dread of his native land, insatiable for human sacrifice, and bowed down to by his people in fear and trembling. In the contrast between his former greatness and his present insignificance there lay, according to the man, all the pathos of the situation.

  The Lonely Lady would have none of this theory. He was essentially a kind little god, she insisted. She doubted whether he had ever been very powerful. If he had been so, she argued, he would not now be lost and friendless, and, anyway, he was a dear little god, and she loved him, and she hated to think of him sitting there day after day with all those other horrid, supercilious things jeering at him, because you could see they did! After this vehement outburst the little lady was quite out of breath.

  That topic exhausted, they naturally began to talk of themselves. He found out that his surmise was correct. She was a nursery governess to a family of children who lived at Hampstead. He conceived an instant dislike of these children; of Ted, who was five and really not naughty, only mischievous; of the twins who were rather trying, and of Molly, who wouldn’t do anything she was told, but was such a dear you couldn’t be cross with her!

  ‘Those children bully you,’ he said grimly and accusingly to her.

  ‘They do not,’ she retorted with spirit. ‘I am extremely stern with them.’

  ‘Oh! Ye gods!’ he laughed. But she made him apologize humbly for his scepticism.

  She was an orphan she told him, quite alone in the world.

  Gradually he told her something of his own life: of his official life, which had been painstaking and mildly successful; and of his unofficial pastime, which was the spoiling of yards of canvas.

  ‘Of course, I don’t know anything about it,’ he explained. ‘But I have always felt I could paint something some day. I can sketch pretty decently, but I’d like to do a real picture of something. A chap who knew once told me that my technique wasn’t bad.’

  She was interested, pressed for details.

  ‘I am sure you paint awfully well.’ He shook his head.

  ‘No, I’ve begun several things lately and chucked them up in despair. I always thought that, when I had the time, it would be plain sailing. I have been storing up that idea for years, but now, like everything else, I suppose, I’ve left it too late.’

  ‘Nothing’s too late–ever,’ said the little lady, with the vehement earnestness of the very young.

  He smiled down on her. ‘You think not, child? It’s too late for some things for me.’

  And the little lady laughed at him and nick-named him Methuselah.

  They were beginning to feel curiously at home in the British Museum. The solid and sympathetic policeman who patrolled the galleries was a man of tact, and on the appearance of the couple he usually found that his onerous duties of guardianship were urgently needed in the adjoining Assyrian room.

  One day the man took a bold step. He invited her out to tea!

  At first she demurred.

  ‘I have no time. I am not free. I can come some mornings because the children have French lessons.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said the man. ‘You could manage one day. Kill off an aunt or a second cousin or something, but come. We’ll go to a little ABC shop near here, and have buns for tea! I know you must love buns!’

  ‘Yes, the penny kind with currants!’

  ‘And a lovely glaze on top–’

  ‘They are such plump, dear things–’

  ‘There is something,’ Frank Oliver said solemnly, ‘infinitely comforting about a bun!’

  So it was arranged, and the little governess came, wearing quite an expensive hothouse rose in her belt in honour of the occasion.

  He had noticed that, of late, she had a strained, worried look, and it was more apparent than ever this afternoon as she poured out the tea at the little marble-topped table.

  ‘Children been bothering you?’ he asked solicitously.

  She shook her head. She had seemed curiously disinclined to talk about the children lately.

  ‘They’re all right. I never mind them.’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  His sympathetic tone seemed to distress her unwarrantably.

  ‘Oh, no. It was never that. But–but, indeed, I was lonely. I was indeed!’ Her tone was almost pleading.

  He said quickly, touched: ‘Yes, yes, child, I know–I know.’

  After a minute’s pause he remarked in a cheerful tone: ‘Do you know, you haven’t even asked my name yet?’

  She held up a protesting hand.

  ‘Please, I don’t want to know it. And don’t ask mine. Let us be just two lonely people who’ve come together and made friends. It makes it so much more wonderful–and–and different.’

  He said slowly and thoughtfully: ‘Very well. In an otherwise lonely world we’ll be two people who have just each other.’

  It was a little different from her way of putting it, and she seemed to find it difficult to go on with the conversation. Instead, she bent lower and lower over her plate, till only the crown of her hat was visible.

  ‘That’s rather a nice hat,’ he said by way of restoring her equanimity.

  ‘I trimmed it myself,’ she informed him proudly.

  ‘I thought so the moment I saw it,’ he answered, saying the wrong thing with cheerful ignorance.

  ‘I’m afraid it is not as fashionable as I meant it to be!’

  ‘I think it’s a perfectly lovely hat,’ he said loyally.

  Again constraint settled down upon them. Frank Oliver broke the silence bravely.

  ‘Little Lady, I didn’t mean to tell you yet, but I can’t help it. I love you. I want you. I loved you from the first moment I saw you standing there in your little black suit. Dearest, if two lonely people were together–why–there would be no more loneliness. And I’d work, oh! how I’d work! I’d paint you. I could, I know I could. Oh! my little girl, I can’t live without you. I can’t indeed–’

  His little lady was looking at him very steadily. But what she said was quite the last thing he expected her to say. Very quietly and distinctly she said: ‘You bought that handkerchief!’

  He was amazed at this proof of feminine perspicacity, and still more amazed at her remembering it against him now. Surely, after this lapse of time, it might have been forgiven him.

  ‘Yes, I did,’ he acknowledged humbly. ‘I wanted an excuse to speak to you. Are you very angry?’ He waited meekly for her words of condemnation.

  ‘I think it was sweet of you!’ cried the little lady with vehemence. ‘Just sweet of you!’ Her voice ended uncertainly.

  Frank Oliver went on in his gruff tone:

  ‘Tell me, child, is it impossible? I know I’m an ugly, rough old fellow…’

  The Lonely Lady interrupted him.

  ‘No, you’re not! I wouldn’t have you different, not in any way. I love you just as you are, do you understand? Not because I’m sorry for you, not because I’m alone in the world and want someone to be fond of me and take care of me–but because you’re just–you. Now do you understand?’

  ‘Is it true?’ he asked ha
lf in a whisper.

  And she answered steadily: ‘Yes, it’s true–’ The wonder of it overpowered them.

  At last he said whimsically: ‘So we’ve fallen upon heaven, dearest!’

  ‘In an ABC shop,’ she answered in a voice that held tears and laughter.

  But terrestrial heavens are short-lived. The little lady started up with an exclamation.

  ‘I’d no idea how late it was! I must go at once.’

  ‘I’ll see you home.’

  ‘No, no, no!’

  He was forced to yield to her insistence, and merely accompanied her as far as the Tube station.

  ‘Goodbye, dearest.’ She clung to his hand with an intensity that he remembered afterwards.

  ‘Only goodbye till tomorrow,’ he answered cheerfully. ‘Ten o’clock as usual, and we’ll tell each other our names and our histories, and be frightfully practical and prosaic.’

  ‘Goodbye to–heaven, though,’ she whispered.

  ‘It will be with us always, sweetheart!’

  She smiled back at him, but with that same sad appeal that disquieted him and which he could not fathom. Then the relentless lift dragged her down out of sight.

  IV

  He was strangely disturbed by those last words of hers, but he put them resolutely out of his mind and substituted radiant anticipations of tomorrow in their stead.

  At ten o’clock he was there, in the accustomed place. For the first time he noticed how malevolently the other idols looked down upon him. It almost seemed as if they were possessed of some secret evil knowledge affecting him, over which they were gloating. He was uneasily aware of their dislike.

  The little lady was late. Why didn’t she come? The atmosphere of this place was getting on his nerves. Never had his own little friend (their god) seemed so hopelessly impotent as today. A helpless lump of stone, hugging his own despair!

  His cogitations were interrupted by a small, sharp-faced boy who had stepped up to him, and was earnestly scrutinizing him from head to foot. Apparently satisfied with the result of his observations, he held out a letter.

  ‘For me?’

  It had no superscription. He took it, and the sharp boy decamped with extraordinary rapidity.

  Frank Oliver read the letter slowly and unbelievingly. It was quite short.

  Dearest,

  I can never marry you. Please forget that I ever came into your life at all, and try to forgive me if I have hurt you. Don’t try to find me, because it will be no good. It is really ‘goodbye’.

  The Lonely Lady

  There was a postscript which had evidently been scribbled at the last moment:

  I do love you. I do indeed.

  And that little impulsive postscript was all the comfort he had in the weeks that followed. Needless to say, he disobeyed her injunction ‘not to try to find her’, but all in vain. She had vanished completely, and he had no clue to trace her by. He advertised despairingly, imploring her in veiled terms at least to explain the mystery, but blank silence rewarded his efforts. She was gone, never to return.

  And then it was that for the first time in his life he really began to paint. His technique had always been good. Now craftsmanship and inspiration went hand in hand.

  The picture that made his name and brought him renown was accepted and hung in the Academy, and was accounted to be the picture of the year, no less for the exquisite treatment of the subject than for the masterly workmanship and technique. A certain amount of mystery, too, rendered it more interesting to the general outside public.

  His inspiration had come quite by chance. A fairy story in a magazine had taken a hold on his imagination.

  It was the story of a fortunate Princess who had always had everything she wanted. Did she express a wish? It was instantly gratified. A desire? It was granted. She had a devoted father and mother, great riches, beautiful clothes and jewels, slaves to wait upon her and fulfil her lightest whim, laughing maidens to bear her company, all that the heart of a Princess could desire. The handsomest and richest Princes paid her court and sued in vain for her hand, and were willing to kill any number of dragons to prove their devotion. And yet, the loneliness of the Princess was greater than that of the poorest beggar in the land.

  He read no more. The ultimate fate of the Princess interested him not at all. A picture had risen up before him of the pleasure-laden Princess with the sad, solitary soul, surfeited with happiness, suffocated with luxury, starving in the Palace of Plenty.

  He began painting with furious energy. The fierce joy of creation possessed him.

  He represented the Princess surrounded by her court, reclining on a divan. A riot of Eastern colour pervaded the picture. The Princess wore a marvellous gown of strange-coloured embroideries; her golden hair fell round her, and on her head was a heavy jewelled circlet. Her maidens surrounded her, and Princes knelt at her feet bearing rich gifts. The whole scene was one of luxury and richness.

  But the face of the Princess was turned away; she was oblivious of the laughter and mirth around her. Her gaze was fixed on a dark and shadowy corner where stood a seemingly incongruous object: a little grey stone idol with its head buried in its hand in a quaint abandonment of despair.

  Was it so incongruous? The eyes of the young Princess rested on it with a strange sympathy, as though a dawning sense of her own isolation drew her glance irresistibly. They were akin, these two. The world was at her feet–yet she was alone: a Lonely Princess looking at a lonely little god.

  All London talked of this picture, and Greta wrote a few hurried words of congratulation from Yorkshire, and Tom Hurley’s wife besought Frank Oliver to ‘come for a weekend and meet a really delightful girl, a great admirer of your work’. Frank Oliver laughed once sardonically, and threw the letter into the fire. Success had come–but what was the use of it? He only wanted one thing–that little lonely lady who had gone out of his life for ever.

  V

  It was Ascot Cup Day, and the policeman on duty in a certain section of the British Museum rubbed his eyes and wondered if he were dreaming, for one does not expect to see there an Ascot vision, in a lace frock and a marvellous hat, a veritable nymph as imagined by a Parisian genius. The policeman stared in rapturous admiration.

  The lonely god was not perhaps so surprised. He may have been in his way a powerful little god; at any rate, here was one worshipper brought back to the fold.

  The Little Lonely Lady was staring up at him, and her lips moved in a rapid whisper.

  ‘Dear little god, oh! dear little god, please help me! Oh, please do help me!’

  Perhaps the little god was flattered. Perhaps, if he was indeed the ferocious, unappeasable deity Frank Oliver had imagined him, the long weary years and the march of civilization had softened his cold, stone heart. Perhaps the Lonely Lady had been right all along and he was really a kind little god. Perhaps it was merely a coincidence. However that may be, it was at that very moment that Frank Oliver walked slowly and sadly through the door of the Assyrian room.

  He raised his head and saw the Parisian nymph.

  In another moment his arm was round her, and she was stammering out rapid, broken words.

  ‘I was so lonely–you know, you must have read that story I wrote; you couldn’t have painted that picture unless you had, and unless you had understood. The Princess was I; I had everything, and yet I was lonely beyond words. One day I was going to a fortuneteller’s, and I borrowed my maid’s clothes. I came in here on the way and saw you looking at the little god. That’s how it all began. I pretended–oh! it was hateful of me, and I went on pretending, and afterwards I didn’t dare confess that I had told you such dreadful lies. I thought you would be disgusted at the way I had deceived you. I couldn’t bear you to find out, so I went away. Then I wrote that story, and yesterday I saw your picture. It was your picture, wasn’t it?’

  Only the gods really know the word ‘ingratitude’. It is to be presumed that the lonely little god knew the black ingratitude of human
nature. As a divinity he had unique opportunities of observing it, yet in the hour of trial he who had had sacrifices innumerable offered to him, made sacrifice in his turn. He sacrificed his only two worshippers in a strange land, and it showed him to be a great little god in his way, since he sacrificed all that he had.

  Through the chinks in his fingers he watched them go, hand in hand, without a backward glance, two happy people who had found heaven and had no need of him any longer.

  What was he, after all, but a very lonely little god in a strange land?

  Afterword

  ‘The Lonely God’ was first published in the Royal Magazine in July 1926. It is one of Christie’s few purely romantic stories and she herself considered it to be ‘regrettably sentimental’.

  Nevertheless, the story is interesting for it foreshadows Christie’s life-long interest in archaeology, which she identified as being her favourite study in her contribution to Michael Parkinson’s Confessions Album (1973), a book published for charity. It was a common interest in archaeology that led to her meeting the man who became her second husband, the celebrated archaeologist Max Mallowan. For many years after the Second World War, she and Mallowan spent each spring at Nimrud in Assyria and Christie’s own account of excavations at Tell Brak in Syria in 1937 and 1938, Come, Tell Me How You Live (1946), is an entertaining and informative guide to the sites and this important other side of her character. While she never, apparently, wrote while on expedition, her experiences did provide material for several novels, including the Poirot mysteries Murder in Mesopotamia (1936), Death on the Nile (1937) and Appointment With Death (1938), as well as the extraordinary Death Comes as the End (1944), which is set in ancient Egypt over two thousand years before the birth of Christ.

  Manx Gold

  Foreword

  ‘Manx Gold’ is no ordinary detective story; indeed, it is probably unique. The detectives are conventional enough but although they are confronted with a particularly brutal murder, the murderer’s identity is not their main concern. They are rather more interested in unravelling a series of clues to the whereabouts of hidden treasure, a treasure whose existence was not confined to the printed page! Clearly, some explanation is required…